History On Parade (Part 1 of 3), Photos, Notes, and the People's History at the American Inaugural
Posted: Tuesday, March 03, 2009
by Walter Rhett
Charleston Perlo
History on Parade
Children getting ready foran inaugural home party in Detroit
(pipercarter, Flickr / under fair educational, non-commerical use )
The day began with a several-hours-long informal parade. In fact, hundreds of these parades, self guided, crossed the bridges of the Potomac. They assembled along every street and venue, conveyed from every direction leading to the national mall.
The broadcast pundits called this steady day-long surge, the crowds or the gathering crowd. But the story of the people who trekked on Tuesday wasn't in the numbers, the early arrivals, or their failure, despite early planning, to gain seats in the silver, blue, purple, or orange areas around the Capitol. (These sections were reserved for a quarter million citizens with tickets to hear the swearing-in. One Nevada blogger reported the orange line was over a mile longat 8 am!)
Of course, those bottlenecks at the Capitol and the story of those left behind on metro (subway) platforms made the news. These jams morphed into two talking points: 1) the inept planning of the new administration, a clear foreshadowing of its inability to tackle the big problems for which it was inexperienced and untested, and 2) the huge outpouring of support from every quarter of the nation and from around the world that simply overwhelmed a system inadequate from the beginning to cope with the largest influx of visitors Washington has every received. Many outlets covered both angles, the insufficiency andthe overextension.
The overall crowd was big. A British analyst from IHS Jane, using a geostationary satellite, estimated the density at five people per square meter. Using satellite photos snapped at 11:19 am, when the satellite was in position, the analyst estimated a total of 1.4 million. An Arizona State professor using the same images (which can accurately image home plate on a baseball diamond from 423 miles away), estimated only 800,000.
The budget was big, too, the largest ever for an inaugural, $150 million. Letter readers and online comments have becried the expense, and many have been disappointed in the sheer size of the outlay. They believe it subverted Obama's promise of fiscal responsibility, belt-tighting, humility and sacrifice. They feel there were a great number of better uses for such a princely sum. Besides, they claim pointedly, it set the wrong symbolic tone.
Well, I defy these people to produce and manage an event, in fact several events over four days, which involved stages and scaffolds, chairs, portable fencing, crowd control, security for events involving the President and Vice-President and their families, the Congress and cabinet, the ex-President and Vice President, electronics and sound, portable toilets, garbage and recycling teams, and meals and water for the 60,000 member security team (which included the national guard, police from many cities, and several federal law enforcement agencies) and do it at a cost of $10.75 an attendee.
Also, much of the money for the inaugural went back to the federal agencies and institutions. For example, the Smithsonian Institute received $700,000 for opening the Air and Space Museum on Tuesday.
The states of Virginia and Maryland and the District of Columbia billed the inaugural a total of $75 million for reimbursable services. Should the committee asked the states to cut their requests? And frankly, many of those who gathered or watched, or active in their local communities in hundreds of ways, and I didn't hear anybody present object to a free national party for over 500,000 folks, featuring Garth Brooks, Stevie Wonder, Shakira, Sheryl Crow, Bono and U2, with appearances by Tiger Woods, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson, that shared the values and celebrated the creativity of the American quilt in famous words and favorite songs.
Was it money well-spent? An average of $11 a person to safely witness firsthand the transition of power, to mark the transition by your presence and be a proxy and direct reporter for friends and family who waited eagerly to share your eye-witness, is less than the cost of an average haircut.
That $11 a person spend on the inaugural created a climate and moments of beauty and history and memory and witness that will be the pillars of the future and memories of the past. It paid for a time that established a new standard that be recalled to calibrate the national discussion when views and values get off-track. And each person present will go forward as a centurion, a private library and public advocate. Citizenship development at the highest levels of participation at a cost of $11 per person was a pretty good investment, I say. And for those who dissent, I say invest in ourselves: the efficacy of the events and experience, its inspiration and enthusiasm will ripple out and be returned in many directions, many fold.
A Southern Methodist journalism professor shares this view of the events' profound effects on the national and personal attitudes:
I wanted to be there to witness history. I wanted to be there because the election of Barack Obama struck me with an emotional force I didn't see coming. But most of all, I wanted to be there with my two girls, girls who look a lot like Malia and Sasha. I want Nya and Brooke to believe. Like most parents, I want them to think that, yes, they can be anything they want.
"Mom, you could be president," Brooke said. And she turned back to her cereal. Her words sank in, slowly at first, and then I understood. There wasn't a trace of sarcasm. There wasn't a hint of wishful thinking. For her, it was simply possible: I could be president and so could she.
So, I no longer feel the need to brave the cold and stand in the streets. It doesn't really matter if we actually attend or not, although, of course, it would have been wonderful to stand in the middle of history. The inauguration, I have decided, is the outer wrapping of an inner change that we have already begun.
Linda Douglass, former NBC reporter who quit to work for Obama, concurs: the inaugural is not a celebration of Barack Obama's election, it is a celebration of our common values.
I concur--with apologies to Dreyfus. I witnessed and experienced it with my own eyes and measured the cause not by pundit's words but within my own heart and soul.
Vice-President and Dr. Biden walking along
Pennsylvania Avenue in the Inaugural Parade
(fair educational use)
On Tuesday, I arrived from Virginia (the state of Presidents and my birth state) seated comfortably on a metro bus from Rosslyn, one stop from DC's Georgetown. The metro bus crossed the Key bridge, motored passed the shops and eateries of M Street, stopping on Pennsylvania Avenue, on northwest side of Washington Circle, at 23 rd Street. I spied the side view of the Lincoln memorial, a narrow tableau of towering stone columns, at the end of 23 rd Street, only seven short blocks away.
Walking along 23 rd Street, I stopped and descended stairs to an uncrowded lower level food court at a George Washington University. To savor the $1.69 medium coffee. I sat down with a local male Hispanic worker who spoke limited English, but smiled constantly, nodding his head, tapping me on the arm. He recognized the special feeling of the day when he shared with me a thumbs up.
From my notes:
The bus from Roslyn was free, although published accounts indicated standard fares and did not mention my arrival ticket, the trip on bus 38 from Roslyn to Washington Circle. The television reports I saw before leaving at 9 am indicated that many visitors, some who have arrived at metro stations as early as 6 am, were in danger of missing the swearing-in. The passengers on the buses were diverse, friendly, talkative, male and female, all ages, ordinary Americans, some with Steeler jackets, a few with Obama buttons. They were Asians, Hispanics, blacks, whites who shared a steady, lively buzz of conversation, laughter, and light banter. They shared hometowns, travel experiences, and affirmed why they would not have missed being in Washington on this day. A few families and couples carried stadium chairs. Sunlight silhouetted the tall office towers across the Potomac, in Roslyn where I just left. The grey-blue sky held thin clouds, aloft like environmental ribbons and bunting. The towers were curved sleek stacks of polished metal and glass. The oracle of a shining future.
America had its heart and soul on display Tuesday for the inauguration of Barack Obama. Walking down 23 rd Street, the modern office towers and sleek high across the river rise above the bare limbs of the trees: the seasons of the human community mirror the land and its seasons, both a part of a higher order. The harmony of broad towers, pink, coral, and slate gray with alternating skins of glass and steel or brushed aluminum, stood at attention to salute the marching crowds entering the short, portable fenced gates that permitted entry onto the mall.
Witnesses in front of Washington Monument
(zachstern, flickr / used under creative commons license, educational use)
Parades put power within the reach of common people. This parade of the common people streaming through the stark cold empty streets, filled up a place inside and placed an intangible value, the freedom of liberty, within the heart's reach. Without floats and bands, without giant flying puppets and celebraties, without the luna rover, marching youth and flag bearers dancing to Sousa and hip-hop, this ordinary stream of irregulars melted away the cold. The parade drilled deep into most basic senses: the eye, the ear, the nose, the skin. The heart. It was a moving procession of the American spirit.
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Walter,This was a very interesting write. I was proud to see Detroit mentioned first! Thanks for sharing this with us.
This was a certainly interesting article.Sadly, I never saw Obama become president.
It is amazing how much an election can mean to people. In the UK I heard more people voted in the X factor than in the general election!
Walter,I am certainly proud that we were able to elect an African American president but I found it quite interesting how many people managed to get into DC in one 24-hour period on one of the coldest days of the year and yet how many people were unable to get out of New Orleans given 3 days notice.
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